From February 2007 through December 2011, two Colby College graduates, one a Yankees fan and one a Red Sox fan provided unsolicited rants, second-guessing, insight, and commentary on the Yankees, Red Sox, and all things baseball.
57 months, 1,645 posts, 12,680 comments - Thanks for the memories.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

You Want a Job, Ernie?

First things first: John Henry speaks. By "speaks" I mean he goes the most professional avenue possible. First, he decides to have a 3-hour conversation with Francona, then hurry to Yacht Week in Boston Harbor, then bump his head for a convenient excuse to skip out on any public accountability regarding firing the most successful manager in the history of the team. At least he was home in time for the soccer game. After five days of going radio silent, JWH decides to express his feelings on Twitter, home of Justin Bieber and not one, but three fake JD Drews. I can't imagine a more classy, accessible, direct, and accountable way of addressing the public than Twitter. Good job, John. I have some more commentary about that in the previous post. If you don't understand the reference, neither will your readers.

But in the whole controversy surrounding JWH, Theo, Tito, and all that take the focus off of who is really to blame for the implosion of the Best Team Ever. It's not like Tito managed this team into the ground, treating Daniel Bard like Jimy Williams treated Tom Gordon or like Joe Torre treated Scott Proctor. He didn't replace Adrian Gonzalez with Lars Anderson unless the former was complaining about a calf injury that was so severe that he could only hit a ball 450 off of it. This is on the actual group of country club members who did not prioritize winning. Francona said as recently as today that personal goals were taking priority over team goals. Well, in the spirit of Christian Bale, I hope the personal goals (except for coming 1 steal short of 40) were f***ing good, because they're useless now, aren't they?

Without further ado, let's pretend I'm the GM. I give you my proposed list of transactions for this offseason. While I cannot dedicate this to Harold Hawkes and Ben Hecht, I can probably dedicate it to George Steinbrenner.

Josh Beckett: I read somewhere today that this guy, who has failed to stay healthy or effective for the entire fall in 83% of his seasons with Boston, started mailing it in when he fell out of Cy Young Award contention. Who knows how true it is, but it makes sense. As I wrote in the spring when killing players for not being in shape in February, how do you allow yourself to become so hideously out of shape? This guy might talk about how much he cares and how good pitches don't get hit. Here's a new one: Fat pitchers don't get outs. You're fired. Trade him to Pittsburgh.

John Lackey: You're right, your numbers look a lot worse than your performances were. You pitched a lot better than the worst pitcher in baseball. It's hard to grip a ball in damp, rainy conditions...unless you're Clayton Richard and are shutting the Red Sox down in the same game. Fired. Trade him to Seattle, where it's rainy all the time but he has a bigger ballpark. You still have to cover first base, though.

Jon Lester: I saw you in the "Hell Yeah, I Like Beer" video too, buddy. Don't like the dimensions of Fenway Park because home runs there are outs in every other ballpark? Fine. You're fired. Trade him to San Diego. Petco Park will be more conducive to his ballpark design specifications. Maybe there he can show up for an entire season. He showed up for April this year, but failed to show up for September. In San Diego, baseball's only five months long. Loser.

Clay Buchholz: Heard you were pissed about being in the minors in '09. If you hadn't imploded in '08 that wouldn't have happened. Also saw you in the "Hell Yeah, I Like Beer" video. You're fired. Traded to Oakland. Maybe they will indeed move to Silicon Valley, where you'll be closer to more laptops than you'll know what to do with.

Daisuke Matsuzaka: Don't like American workouts? Want to undermine your superiors by grooving some to Tampa Bay in April? Fired, sent back to Japan. Maybe you can find your gyroball there, you failure.

Tim Wakefield: You're right. People DESERVE to see you get a few more wins. How about this (I'm taking words from Lou Merloni): "I want to come back so I can win another championship?" Maybe you could have earned your 200th a little faster if you didn't have a gut as big as Beckett's. You're fired. Get a few more wins with the Mets. They allow people like Jose Reyes to put their own stats first.

Dan Wheeler: You're from Rhode Island? Good. You're fired. Report to Pawtucket until you learn how to pitch again.

Matt Albers: The former Oriole was effective for about as long as his old team was in contention. You're fired. Go back to Baltimore, where games in July, August, and September don't matter unless you're spoiling it for a bunch of spoiled brats.

Franklin Morales: Just because you're left handed doesn't mean you can miss the plate. You're fired. Follow Javier Lopez to San Francisco, you might be able to win a World Series there.

Andrew Miller: Same goes for you. You're fired, but have a nice day. I just hope you were as nice of a guy as the guy they traded for you.

Bobby Jenks: You're a disgrace. Find a salad bar. I'm actually counting my blessings because you had so few chances to pitch the Red Sox into fourth place. You're fired. You're traded to the Cubs, because their new GM Theo Epstein thinks your declining stats will reverse themselves.

Daniel Bard: The "can't pitch under pressure" stuff is beyond your road stats. Isn't that what happened in your first year in professional baseball? You're fired, traded to the Marlins. About 400 people show up there, so you'll have no pressure at all.

Kevin Youkilis: The Greek God of Bitching and Moaning. I heard you like privacy, hate being bothered by fans, don't like 46, don't like umpires, don't like Manny, don't like bus rides, and act like an entitled prick all the time. Playing against the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose payroll is about 1/7 of yours, creates an unfair advantage? Jesus, that's the most F'ed up thing I've heard since Oscar Pistorius's unfair advantage (a Catt Williams reference). Nine days without the DH? Totally unfair, because you don't have nine other all-stars on your team. Totally unfair. You like Cincinnati though? You're fired; traded to the Reds for Bronson Arroyo, who actually like to play here.

Mike Aviles: Learn how to run the bases, then come back. You're fired. The Yomiuri Giants are a good fundamental team. Learn some fundamentals such as baserunning.

Jed Lowrie: You hit .210 against lefties. You're fired. Go to Arizona. You can either rehab your recurring injuries like your boy 46 did or Jed Williams can be cryogenically frozen next to Ted Williams at Alcor.

46: You're worse than Jose Reyes. You cost the team a game so you could enhance your chase toward 40 bases. There is no other reason to steal third base with two outs and Pedroia up when it's late and close. You're fired. Go with your boy Lowrie to Arizona.

Adrian Gonzalez: You're an absolute embarrassment. Losing was "God's will?" Too many Sunday night games had an impact on your season? Your calf muscle hurts, but not so much that it will prevent you from hitting home runs, so you have to put in a minor leaguer who can't catch a pickoff attempt? Your shoulder hurts but you won't tell the Boston media about it? You don't know why people are watching you take batting practice? You are being paid a ton of money not because you deserve it or because of God's will. You're getting paid to produce for a fan base that cares about whether you win games. This is what you signed up for.

You also signed up for a fan base that wants you to care as much as they do. And they're mostly Irish Catholics named Sully and Murph, not Calvinists, so they're not going to eat up your "I'm going to coast through life because that's God's plan" crap. Did you forget to read the Old Testament, you piece of laissez-faire, complacent, blase garbage? How about the part about man's free will? See, you might get torn up when you have an 0-15 stretch, but you won't get torn up when your team wins seven games in a month? Nice priorities. I wonder how your fantasy owners think when they see that you led baseball with GIDPs this year. That's okay, you already built in an excuse to never run hard in March because you're just so slow that it LOOKS like you're jogging to first and dogging it worse than Izzy Alcanatara in the outfield. Built-in excuse there. Built-in excuse with the shoulder. Built in excuse of God's plan. You're so fired. Forget San Diego, you don't deserve to go home. You're traded to Florida, where nobody will watch you do anything and you can continue to put up fantasy stats in meaningless games.

Jason Varitek: Your veteran leadership did a lot of good this year. You also handled Josh Beckett really well, teaching him how to be a man and to not have a security blanket personal catcher. You're fired. Go try to find a job somewhere else.

David Ortiz: News flash: You are NOT the media liaison, telling people who to pick on and not to pick on. You are NOT Jay-Z. You are NOT a private investigator of why your Dominican protein shakes tested positive for steroids. You are NOT the commissioner, so you shouldn't be talking about how much interleague play sucks. You are NOT an umpire, so yes, it is possible that you have taken a called strike that's supposed to be a strike before. You are NOT the general manager, so you have no say of whether your option should be picked up. You are NOT the manager, so stop making pitching or lineup decisions. You are NOT on the team next year, so go the F away.

JD Drew: Your sore shoulder, sore finger, and sore neck - and your desire to play through these things instead of lengthing your DL sting - have partially made it an absolute pleasure to absolutely hammer you on this website for the last five baseball seasons. Enjoy your retirement. You came heralded as the next Mickey Mantle, and you had the talent for it. It's too bad you didn't have an ounce of giveacrap factor in your entire body. You're fired. No thanks for your performance. But thanks for the laughs, you freaking joke.

Darnell McDonald: You were hitting .117 on July 4th. That's half a season. You're fired, because that is not Major League eligible.

Josh Reddick: Too bad people started scouting you and saw you as a pitchtoable hitter with holes in your swing and a lazy attitude in the outfield. I rooted for you. Now I'm firing you.

Carl Crawford: Did Jon "Five Months" Lester help you write your August 26 blog post about I HAD a bad season? There's still a month worth of baseball left! But hey, once you're benched against David Price after hitting .245 for a season, you have license to cry, right? Oh, wait, the previous 22 people on this list probably already told you that. You're fired. The Captain told me you're getting dressed and going home, back to Houston where there are no more private investigators and no more $142 million contracts. Don't come back.

They'll be serviceable up the middle. Not that Scutaro's Ozzie Smith or anything. Although it goes against Carmine's advice, I'd probably just bring up the minor leaguers or play the minor leaguers I'd trade for. At least they'd be happy to be at work everyday.

I mean, Tampa has pitched plenty of pitchers in their early 20s. This is an added benefit, because they might be too young to buy Old Milwaukee for the freaking clubhouse and they can develop an attitude of being serious about your job.

You beat me to ripping JWH's use of Twitter to speak to the public before actually doing an interview. Whatever, you actually had time and your post is much more well thought out and entertaining.

About your cut list, I agree with just about everything you wrote, except for the fact that a) moving some of these guys is nearly impossible (like who the fuck would take a .250 hitter with $120M left on his deal) and b) you just fired the whole team (it's really sad that nearly every player on this team has a justifiable argument towards firing them).

It's like this team is full of the really gifted athletes and ballplayers who could be so good but they just don't try because they don't have to. I know kids like that, but I'm in high school. These guys are getting paid! These guys have real talent (okay, maybe not John Lackey). I think that's where the whole sense of entitlement idea came to be, and the shift of focus from winning to achieving personal goals: All these guys come in here, especially Crawford and Gonzo this year, and they act like Bud Selig is just gonna mail the World Series trophy here in October. Even players like Beckett and Ortiz and Ellsbury (just naming a few, obviously the list would go on for a while) came in this year and just thought "Oh, we got this. Let's just coast now and worry about ourselves. We'll care about winning in the Postseason."

This team had a bullshit attitude. That's why they opened 2-10 and finished 7-20. So fuck you Carl Crawford. Fuck you John Lackey. Fuck you Daisuke, Youkilis, Ortiz, the list goes on. Even the ladies' hero, Jacoby Ellsbury. Take your MVP trophy and 30-30 seasonand kiss my ass. These guys can change their attitudes or get the hell out.

Just to set the record straight, Alfredo Aceves should be on the top of this list of people who are eligible for having a job next year. Guy's awesome. Guy doesn't cry. Guy's just a great professional.